Decompression After the End of the World
by screening
Summary: Thor and Loki just destroyed Asgard together, and now they're sitting on a spaceship with the last of Asgard's people. There's probably a need for a heart-to-heart about the next steps. [A quick dialogue study building on Ragnarok's plot; I might extend the story out if I can ever figure out how to write in the way Mark Ruffalo speaks.]


" _Earth it is, then."_

Thor was somewhat uncomfortable when nobody stopped or questioned his decision. Heimdall, who had become the pilot of the ship by unspoken mass consent, inclined his head in agreement, and retreated to speak to the best engineers left of Asgard's populace, who were nodding and discussing and looking severe. And then Korg went off with Meek to discuss something about how Meek definitely wasn't dead _even though he'd looked really convincingly dead, sorry about that,_ and the Valkyrie and Hulk had walked away and he was left sitting on an uncomfortable chair staring into the vacuum of space with Loki by his side, what was left of Asgard milling about behind him.

What an odd week it had been.

Loki hummed a little as he looked out of the viewing port with Thor.

"Earth, then."

"Norway. It...feels right. Not too overcrowded. They have bears there, I've heard. It'll be nostalgic, and I'm sure Erik can let us know the best place for two hundred thousand Asgardians to call home."

"Home."

"Asgard's a people, not a-"

"-I know, brother, I heard you give the speech." Loki sighed. "I'll be happy to hear it, in time. I...I just blew up our planet."

Thor chuckled, and the movement made his eye socket hurt behind the metal eyepatch. "Father did always say you would."

"Not funny."

"Ah, it is a little bit."

Loki didn't respond, and they continued looking out on what was left of Asgard, mixing unceremoniously with the dust of space.

Thor had made a life out of being adaptable: it had made him many new friends and homes over the years. But it was an adaptability grown out of great privilege, and he knew this: he could wander the stars, knowing he was a prince of one of the most powerful planets in the cosmos, and even at his lowest moments, that badge had clung to him like dust on his skin.

Like Asgard's dust, stuck to his skin, mixing with his blood as he had showered it off in his quarters and put on an eyepatch.

Thor shivered, and Loki would be a fool not to notice.

"You're king now, brother. Are you ready for it?"

"No."

"No, you're not." Ordinarily, Thor would have bristled, but Loki had been in an unusually self-reflective mood recently, and he waited. Loki took a breath.

"I always did want the throne more than you, Thor."

" _Really_? I never knew. Oh, no, wait: no, I definitely knew. It had something to do with when you pushed me into a pit of spikes as a child. Or when you tried to convince me I was a Celestial and that my true calling was to make my own planet, far far away."

Loki exhaled shortly. "I did, that was a funny one."

"I got halfway to _Xandar_ before mother found me."

"And you'd covered yourself in gold body paint."

Thor didn't laugh this time: it hurt his eyeless eye too much. Loki didn't laugh either.

"But you never wanted it. Kingship."

"It was Odin's: I couldn't mark up to him."

Loki paused, long and considerate.

"He was a liar, and a tyrant."

Again, Thor suppressed his ire. He remembered the murals on the ceiling. He remembered Odin's oldest lie, about Hela's existence, his passing on the problem to them in death.

"He was."

"...I admired him, Thor. Ever since I was a child, all I wanted to be was father, with the people's love, the galaxy's fear. And I took him on, for a couple years, and it didn't fulfil me. Nobody really feared him, or loved him. He just existed, like we all do. Better known than most, but his days of making war and brokering peace were over: the only interesting thing he had left to do was die."

"Is this one of your comforting stories? Because it isn't working."

"My point isn't to comfort you, my point is that you won't be fundamentally different for being king. More busy, perhaps. It'll be less easy to sneak off. God knows it will be, nobody would leave me alone for a minute, for _years_. I had to make a copy of him six times over just to take a long weekend. Just got them to sit in corners of meetings and nod and people were fooled for days. But, ah...you'll still be you."

Thor looked down at the uncomfortable, plasticky seat he was sitting in. He sat a little higher in it and blinked the one eye he had left out at the glorious expanse of space.

"At least I won't have to keep visiting Midgard. In _fact_ , I can involve myself fully in their odd politics! You know they once elected a donkey to a senate? Midgardians will stop at _nothing_."

"And what's their penalty for murder?" Loki asked, voice just a little strained.

"Usually electrocution." Thor replied, voice just a little mocking.

"That's definitely not true."

"Mm, well, we'll see."

"Brother, that's not true and you're fucking with me. Thor! You're fucking with me, right?"

"You're an Asgardian, you'll live."

" _Only in title_ ," Loki grated out in horror, and Thor couldn't help but laugh.

"We'll be fine, Loki. If they want your head, you know I'll defend you. Plus, you'd be fine with electrocution. Remember the carpet?"

Loki huffed, sounding for all the world like a bratty little brother. "That carpet was 50 meters long and you're a living lightning rod. You could have killed me."

Thor smirked. He let his mind cast deep into the new reserves of untapped power he had found, then just skim over the top a little as he poked Loki with a sparking finger.

Heimdall, having come to a conclusion with the engineers as to the best route for safety and speed to Earth, turned to his newly enthroned king to announce the needed course changes, and found him wrestling on the floor with his little brother. Heimdall shrugged a little, and decided he was probably okay taking a little executive decision for himself in this new monarchy.

* * *

 _This was mostly an exercise in dialogue, as I find both Loki and Thor to be extraordinarily tricky to write. Written in a single draft, because it's NaNo month._


End file.
